A life in pictures
by LupinsGirlSA
Summary: "It came to him like an old film, yellow and grainy and black at the edges and he couldn't make out if it was real or not." Rated M for suggestions of violence and adult themes, but I'm paranoid and it isn't that bad.


Disclaimer: I own nothing. The Blacklist and all its characters belong to NBC and Jon Bokenkamp. You can't sue me, I don't have any money.

Author's note: A very small snippet typed out on my phone in about an hour while I should have been sleeping. This wasn't originally meant to be set anywhere but it could be seen as part of s4e5. Ignores large chunks of canon.

-/-/-/-/-

There was a flash of light, then the noize and then a wave of hot air that sent him flying backwards and then there was nothing.

It came to him like an old film, yellow and grainy and black at the edges and he couldn't make out if it was real or not. He couldn't bring himself to care.

He saw his father.

He saw his mother with the cat in her lap.

He saw Tommy and Mitch somewhere on a football field.

He saw Jenny Middleton behind the lockers with her skirt pulled up too high and her top button undone.

He saw his mother in tears and his father looking stoic outside a bus in a dusty parking lot with names being called out in the background.

He saw Tommy again, desperately trying to hold on to a dead man somewhere in a river in a nameless location.

He saw a landscape covered in snow and a long row of men marching to their deaths. Someone speaks in Russian.

He sees Katarina.

He sees a baby girl swaddled in a pink blanket.

He sees snow again. Spots of blood against the pure white. He tastes copper pennies.

He sees flames climbing up a curtain, licking at his skin. He feels hellfire across his back, he smells burning flesh and strawberry shampoo and the little girl clings to him for dear life.

He sees Sam, sitting on his porch with a cigarette in his hand. He sees an old blanket and a Formica tabletop.

He sees Kate.

He sees a child, no, a teenager. Shaking and terrified and trying to keep an eye on all the white men with guns at the same time but he can't quite manage it. He tries to move away but the chains won't let him and he's too far gone to fight.

A hundred dead men.

A crate full of guns in a warehouse in Tripoli.

He sees Maddie.

Thousands of flamingos somewhere on a lake.

A blond boy somewhere on the outskirts of a town in Brussels.

He sees a Lizzie again. Lizzie with Sam. Lizzie in a prom dress. Lizzie graduating. Lizzie in a white dress kissing the boy. Lizzie happy. Lizzie standing in front of a box. Lizzie in a red dress. Lizzie happy. Lizzie scared. Lizzie pregnant. Another swaddled little bundle. Lizzie...

A chair tips backwards into a bath. The smell of chemicals thick in the air.

"You're a monster."

He sees Luli, on her knees in front of the box. He sees red and then she's gone. Arabic, a prayer in Arabic. White hot pain and then red spots against snow again.

He sees Sam again, too thin, too tired, too young to look so old.

He's standing in front of the box this time. A man there one minute and gone the next.

A dead man appearing out of nowhere. That teenage boy in a basement collapsing in his arms, too heavy to hold up now.

He sees Kate again. Kate up to her elbows in a dead man three times her size. Kate surrounded by bloodied gauze, leaning tiredly against a table in a morgue. Kate asleep on a cot in a makeshift hospital. Kate with a gun against her cheek. Little Nikos. Kate in a clearing.

He sees a man praying in a church. "It won't come."

His vision changes again. All the colours are in sharp relief, then everything becomes white and then he sees nothing.

"REDDINGTON!"

"Boss?"

"Raymond? Raymond!"

What could be so urgent? There are hands on him, someone is kneeling over him. He tries to open his eyes but his eyelids seem heavier than they should be.

It sounds like he's underwater, the only clear thing is a sound like a mosquito somewhere close by. He tries to swat it away but somebody grabs his hand and holds it firm.

He finally manages to open his eyes and everything seems too bright. Is he still seeing things?

No.

Pinpricks of light shine through holes in the roof.

It's Dembe who has him by the arm, trying to get him to lay still. Baz is checking him for injuries. Everything hurts, there isn't a muscle in his body that doesn't ache.

Lizzie is standing in the background, hands over her face, looking at them from between her fingers. She shouldn't even be here.

"Trap… It was a trap."

-/-/-/-/-

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